Mother Jones (Joan Goggin) meeting with Mick Lynch, General Secretary of the RMT Union at the 2023 Spirit of Mother Jones Festival.
Mother Jones with Mick Lynch.
Joan’s dad, Bill Martin was a branch secretary of the ITGWU for several years. When Jim Larkin visited Cork, he usually called to the Martin family home on Bandon Road for a meal and a chat.
Just a short distance down Bandon Road near Warren’s Lane was the family home of the Lynch family. Mick Lynch’s dad, Jackie Lynch emigrated from Bandon Road to London at the beginning of the Second World War.
Labour history resonates among neighbour’s children.
Watch interview between Emma Bowell of Frameworks Films with Mick Lynch at the 2023 Spirit of Mother Jones Festival.
The formal launch of the 2022 Spirit of Mother Jones Festival took place recently at the beautiful old Butter Market Gardens underneath the famous Bells of Shandon.
The Deputy Lord Mayor of Cork Cllr Damien Boylan officiated.
Welcoming everyone, the Deputy Lord Mayor stated how wonderful it was that the Spirit of Mother Jones festival was back in the community again after two years and he praised the resilience of Mother Jones and the Committee for enabling this famous Cork woman to be celebrated.
Cork Mother Jones Committee and friends with the Deputy Lord Mayor of Cork,
On behalf of the committee Ann Piggott made a presentation to the deputy Lord Mayor of a framed photograph of Cork’s northside by Dylan Fitzgerald which is included in the 2022 programme.
Presentation to Deputy Lord Mayor of Cork, by Committee member Ann Piggott.
In addition a special ‘friend of Mother Jones Award’ was presented to Cork’s own Mother Jones, Joan Goggin for her long standing assistance to the annual festival. Joan is due to appear at the forthcoming festival where she will remember her father’s friend, trade union leader Jim Larkin who died 75 years ago this year.
James Nolan presents Joan with a portrait.Joan with a Friend of Mother Jones Award.
Anne Twomey of Shandon Area History Group then spoke about the screening of the new documentary film called Ordinary Women in Extraordinary Times produced by Frameworks Films which will be shown for the first time on Friday 29th July at the festival.
Barry and Rose from Cobh Animation.
The programme and poster for the 2022 festival was then introduced and all is now set for the eleventh festival which will be held at the Maldron Hotel Shandon and the Dance Cork Firkin Crane from the 28th July until 30th July. All are welcome.
We imagine if Mother Jones visited Shandon, before Christmas 1920. During this time Ireland’s War of Independence was raging, and much of Patrick’s Street in Cork had been recently burned down by the Auxiliaries. The funeral of Terence McSwiney, Lord Mayor of Cork, who died after a 74 day hunger strike in Brixton prison had taken place through the streets of Cork, a few weeks earlier. Mother Jones, (Joan Goggin) visits her former home near Shandon and walks around the deserted streets, where she played as a child (Aoife Delaney). She recalls her childhood memories where she, her mother (Eadaoin Delaney) and her family had once been happy prior to the Great Famine and the emigration of her family to Canada.
The Cork Mother Jones Committee will show a short film of Mother Jones visiting Cork 100 years ago in December 1920 at the Spirit of Mother Jones Virtual festival (Friday Nov 27thto Monday Nov 30th).
There is no evidence that Mary Harris/Mother Jones ever did return to Cork city where she was born in 1837 and left after the Great Hunger in the 1840s.
However for the purposes of the imagination, we imagine Mother Jones visiting her childhood home and streets in Shandon just before Christmas 1920 after the burning of Cork City.
Taking the lead role is actress Joan Goggin know to all as Cork’s own Mother Jones. Joan’s family, especially her Dad had an involvement in the labour/trade union movement for many years and the famous union leader Jim Larkin sometimes stayed in their house when visiting Cork.
The film also features a series of flashbacks to the 1840s where Joan is joined by her daughter Eadaoin Delaney who plays the role of Ellen Cotter, Mary Harris’s mother. Joan’s granddaughter Aoife plays a young Mary Harris skipping on the streets of Shandon.
In a remarkable twist of faith, in her soliloquy at Shandon, Mother Jones recalls her only son named Terence who was born in 1865, but who tragically died in the Memphis yellow fever epidemic in October 1867 and acknowledges Cork’s Lord Mayor Terence MacSwiney who had died a few weeks earlier in October 1920.
This short film entitled Mother Jones Returns to Shandonwas filmed in andaround the Streets of Shandon by Frameworks Films.
All events will be streamed by Frameworks Films for the Spirit of Mother Jones Festival 2020 and will be freely available to view by all.
Full programme of events will appear here and the Mother Jones Cork Facebook by mid-November.
Joan Goggin (Courtesy of Andy Jay)Joan in Shandon Joan with Lord Mayor John Sheehan at the March of the Mill Children 2019Joan at the March of the Mill Children 2019.
The Spirit of Mother Jones Festival 